


Curb Appeal

by SnarkyLlama



Category: NSYNC
Genre: Canon Gay Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-03
Updated: 2012-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-28 20:06:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/311693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnarkyLlama/pseuds/SnarkyLlama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris buys a house.  Lance is there to help christen it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curb Appeal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pensnest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pensnest/gifts).



Chris bought a house and Lance somehow managed to be there for his first night in the new place. The closing had been late in the day, stupidly late, but Chris decided that the place needed christening that very night even though the furniture wouldn't be moved in until the next day.

 _Christening_ had fun connotations, but Lance didn't have expectations along those lines. _Christening_ could also be just a play on _Chris_ , and besides, Chris hadn't looked at him that way in ages. Well, maybe not quite an age. There'd still been something once in a while, but definitely not since he'd started his space training. Sometimes, Lance thought that Chris didn't look at him anymore period. Well. He couldn't help looking in Lance's direction, but it was like Chris didn't recognize him anymore.

Sometimes Lance didn't recognize himself anymore either.

Lance was expecting a house warming or something, a classic Chris bash with lots of people, good beer, cheap food and a dozen SuperSoakers. It wasn't like that. Instead, it was just the two of them drinking something fruity and laying out by the pool they couldn't swim in because "they chlorinated the hell out of it. Made it look good for showing the place, yeah, but now I have to figure out pool services along with everything else. I don't know what I was thinking. Unless. You want to be my pool boy, Bass?"

For an answer, Lance got up to pour himself another glass from the icy pitcher of vodka-cranberry- _7-Up_ fruit salad stuff and refused to do the same for Chris.

"Oh, I see how it is," Chris said. "Cosmonauts. They're all the same. Not too good to do the cabana boy, but way too good to be him."

"Get a cabana and we can renegotiate."

Lance took a quick detour on his way back to his spot and dropped an ice-covered twist of lime peel down the back of Chris's shirt. Surprisingly, Chris didn't tackle him or toss him into the pool. He simply wriggled out of his T-shirt and threw it at him. Lance caught it in his free hand and grinned, impressed with himself because it was a pretty smooth move, and hey, any time he could trick a cute guy out of his shirt was a time worth celebrating.

"Too slow, old man."

"Not slow," Chris said. "Mellow." He gestured back towards the house. "I'm a responsible home owner now."

Lance snorted.

"No, really," Chris said. "It's important. You buy a house, you have to chill the fuck out or you become one of those guys who end up turning a twelve-gauge shotgun on their neighbors because of the way they trimmed the hedges."

"I don't think--this doesn't seem like the sort of neighborhood where that would happen."

"Can happen anywhere, Bass. You have no idea. So I am mellow. I am calm. I have embraced serenity and released my inner JC."

"Oh, Jesus, we're all in for it now. No one who's seen C in the studio would ever buy that line."

The topic of home ownership led eventually to Joey. He hadn't proposed to Kelly yet, but they both knew it was in the works. Lance was happy for them, genuinely happy for Joey, but still...

"It feels like the end of an age," Lance said. "Like yet another end to an age I'm not entirely sure I'm ready to say goodbye to. I thought... I mean, that's how the groom's supposed to feel, right? Not the best man."

Chris nodded, but then said, "No, I think a lot of best men feel that way. At least if they're still single. Who wants to see their wingman retire? Except in your case..." Chris peered over his sunglasses at him. "Joey never did help you much in the picking up chicks department."

"Are you kidding? He was great. Picked them all up so I didn't have to."

"Hmm..." Chris said. "I guess you'll have to start spending more time with me then. You know the honeys can't resist the fine Kirkpatrick ass."

Lance laughed.

"Hey! Don't mock the FKA! Those who underestimate its powers--"

"No, no. It's not that. No offense to the FKA 'cause how many people have a butt worthy of its own acronym? But, wow. No. That would not be a good plan for me."

"You don't want to hang with me?"

"I love hanging with you," Lance said. "But I've got to show off my assets to their best advantage. I need a wingman whose ass isn't finer than mine."

"Whoa. Did we teach you to lie like that? I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed."

"I'm not lying."

"Well of course you're not going to admit to it. We taught you better than that." Chris stood up and pulled off his sunglasses, treating Lance to an assessing look. "If indeed we were the ones who taught you such things. When was the last time you looked at yourself in a mirror? A big mirror?"

"What?"

"Come on." Chris caught Lance's hand and pulled him to his feet.

"What?"

"Come on, come on."

Chris tugged at his wrist, and Lance didn't fight being pulled into the house, although he did balk a little at the door to the master bathroom.

"If 'house christening' meant some kind of weird peeing ritual--"

Chris laughed. "I'm not that kind of freak. Get in here."

The room doglegged around a corner, so all Lance saw was a wide expanse of mirrors and black marble. A large mirror spanned the wall behind two black sinks set in a large marble-topped vanity, and the opposite wall was lined with mirrored doors.

"Ugh." Lance didn't want to insult Chris's new place, but he had his limits.

"Yeah, I know," Chris said. "It's the world's sparkliest linen closet, but it comes in handy. Now look."

He pulled Lance into the center of the mirrored space, then drew him around sideways until they stood close together, face to face. He smelled a little like vodka fruit salad, and Lance liked that.

"Not at me. Come on." Chris nudged Lance's chin, turning his face until their eyes met in one of the closet's mirrored doors. "Good. Now see?" Chris did a little booty shake and Lance smiled.

"I do see. But we've already reached an agreement on the Kirkpatrick charms."

"No, we haven't! Geez, do I have to do everything around here? Now look." He gave his little shake again. "Kirkpatrick ass, very fine, aged well, yadda yadda, and--" He turned Lance slightly and rested his hands low on Lance's hips. "--Basstronaut ass. Literally out of this world."

"Not literally," Lance said, still focused more on Chris than on the mirrors.

"As good as. Ladies will flock to the FKA because only the most confident would think they'd ever have a chance at that." Chris pointed at the mirror image of Lance's backside.

"You are so full of it." Lance traced the inked line of the phoenix down Chris's outstretched arm until he reached Chris's hand. "You should put this back."

"Hmm?"

Lance rolled his hips, and Chris figured it out. They stood there for a long moment, hands on each other's hips, but neither of them made a move to go further.

"What are we doing here?" Lance finally asked.

Chris shrugged, but moved closer still, sliding one hand to the small of Lance's back, making him shiver before heating him up.

"We're making sure you've done a true appraisal of your assets," Chris said. "I don't like to see you undervaluing yourself."

That hit a little too close to home, so Lance tried to laugh it off.

"I think the whole home-buying experience has gone to your head. Inspections, appraisals..."

"Maybe it has," Chris agreed. "So let's talk curb appeal."

With Chris's hand warm on his lower back, Lance had no difficulty following that leap of Kirkpatrickian logic.

"I am not getting a tramp stamp."

"Don't be crass, Bass. I would never suggest such a thing."

"No?"

Chris shook his head. "Not for you. For you, I was thinking... something higher." He drew his hand up along Lance's spine, and Lance had to bite down on his own lip to keep from wantonly arching into it. "Get some ink here, something roughly triangular."

He traced a pattern at the base of Lance's neck, using just enough of his nails that Lance had no chance of hiding his reaction. Chris licked his lips and smiled before continuing.

"Make it something special, but use the flat of the triangle to emphasize your shoulders and then it can point, all subtle like, down to your finer assets."

"Something special, huh?"

"Yeah. I don't know. You'll have to figure that out for yourself, but just... give your lovers something pretty to look at, okay? Not a scary-ass, cherubic version of your momma."

That was mean, but so very true. Lance laughed and leaned in close enough that his lips brushed Chris's ear as he spoke. "I don't know. Maybe I have some weird hang up where I only want to be fucked in the dark. Something like that could be my own personal hankie code."

"Or a way to screen out the really creepy fucks."

"If they're able to get it up while staring at that, I should run?"

"Like the wind."

"I'll keep that in mind," Lance said, and then he paused for a second.

A small part of him was asking, _Why now? Why are we doing this now?_ But he'd already stated half of the answer. It was the end of an age; it was time to begin something new. Or try a new twist on an old favorite...

"But I think I'll need your input on this one. Tell me... What would you want to look at while you were giving it to me hard?"

"I don't know," Chris said, and he sort of laughed and stumbled and half-crawled right up Lance until he had him pressed up against one of the mirrors. "We might have to try it a few times? 'Cause I gotta admit, I've always been picturing it more like me hanging on tight while you ride me like a space bull."

"Okay," Lance said, right before kissing him. "We will do that, too."

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, Pen, for being a Make-the-Yuletide-Gay Feedback Hero!


End file.
